Christian. Feminist. Nerd. Traveler

I LOVE getting backstory for a villain. So while I desperately wanted Meyer to release the fourth and final volume of her quadrilogy, The Lunar Chronicles, Winter can wait. It’s Levana’s story first! Serving as a prequel of sorts, this mini-book (is 220 pages mini? I don’t know) was a fantastic look at the moon’s culture, an incredible insight into Levana’s motivations, and a tantalizing hint of main characters we’ve grown to love from the main series. That sentence looks like I got lost in an overly expressive thesaurus, and I apologize. I just forgot how much I love Meyer’s fantasy world!

Levana’s story is excellently handled. Although we get to empathize with her (sadistic older sister, horribly disfigured) she is still consistently creepy enough that our allegiances never fully shift. Her “love story” with Evret is terrifying, and a really compelling look into the nuances of the mind of a rapist. Levana is such a great villain because she doesn’t realize that’s what she is. She always thinks she is doing the best thing possible–for her country, for those she “loves,” and of course, for herself. The fact that this leads her to murder on multiple occasions is why she’s the bad guy.

Although Fairest is a self-contained story that ends far before Cinder begins, it totally rejuvenated my love for Meyer’s series, and I cannot wait until Winter comes out in the fall!

Book Jacket

Mirror, mirroron the wall.Who is the Fairestof them all?

Fans of the Lunar Chronicles know Queen Levana as a ruler who uses her “glamour” to gain power. But long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress, Levana lived a very different story–a story that has never been told…until now.